1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fixing structure of a ceramic susceptor to a chamber, a supporting structure of a ceramic susceptor and a supporting member for the same.
2. Related Art Statement
In a system for producing semiconductors, it is necessary to fix a ceramic susceptor made of, for example, aluminum nitride to the inner wall surface of a chamber. For this, one end of a tubular supporting member made of a ceramics is fixed to a joining face of a ceramic heater and the other end is fixed to the inner wall surface of a chamber. The supporting member is composed of a ceramic plate made of a heat resistant ceramics such as alumina and aluminum nitride. The supporting member and chamber are sealed with an O-ring to secure the air-tightness. It is thus possible to seal the inner space of the supporting member with respect to the inner space of the chamber to secure air-tightness and thereby to prevent the leakage of a gas in the inner space of the chamber to the outside of the chamber.
However, when such cylindrical supporting member is joined with the joining face (back face) of the ceramic heater and the temperature of the heater is elevated, fine cracks may occur along the joining face between the heater and supporting member. Such fine cracks might lead to gas leakage. The assignee filed a Japanese patent application 2000-58, 349 (publication 2001-250, 858A) and disclosed to join a supporting member having a shape of bellows to a ceramic heater to solve the above problems.